the surface of the moon
by Invader Elze
Summary: Ami, not yet an adult, relinquishes her childhood to the taste of Usagi's strawberry lip gloss; but what is a mere solider to the beauty of the moon?


"Ami," the girl before me whispers, again.

 _Another day, another time for whispering._

"How far should we go, today?"

Her small hands fiddle with the ribbon lying over her breasts, twirling between its folds with delicacy and restraint. I sit at the base of her bed, feeling the plushness of the quilt, and noting its texture. The room is pink, filled with ornaments and lacy bobbles that speak of its owner— childish. _But are we immature?_ She blushes like the covers of the manga on her shelf, and flattens her skirt in anxiousness. However, as she looks as me and I glimpse those eyes through messy fringe, I glean something separate and new.

 _Usagi._

"I'm not sure how to start." I admit, twirling blue hair between my fingers. For my resources and academic position, this is where my experience ends. _Does she think I'm childish?_ I want to prove my worth to her, here as in our work. _I want those glimmering eyes to see me in whole._ The eyes that gleam with determination and character as adversary confronts her; that focus. I love her earnest grit and her beautiful heart, and I want to feel the sticky gloss of her lips.

She bites those lips, and they shimmer. _Are they strawberry? Melon?_ The precious little distance between us closes, like her eyes, like her bedroom door. It's raining outside, and the droplets make small noises on the rooftop. Something stirs. My fingertips brush against her legs, by accident, and then purposefully.

Her hair— so always neat, in those long golden strands— is the only obstacle between her mouth and my curiosity. _God, it really gets everywhere_. My hair, short, is manageable—but hers is long and blonde and smells clean and fruity and fantastic. _What's the problem, again? God, let me kiss her._

She put her hand on my waist and against the side of my face in a single fluid motion; she so close that I can see the light refracting in her eyes. _So close._ I'm nervous, in her grasp. She whispers something I can't hear, but her voice is comforting regardless. The warmth of her hands is just as reassuring, but the heat is growing, always growing. Is it possible to be burned by human skin? Her skin is too pale and hot to be human, and maybe she isn't. Perhaps the girl before me is a beautiful warrior princess, and I only her pitiable servant. Lesser. Nothing when compared to the grandeur of the sun.

But the goddess of the sky is reaching towards me, and her unknowable lips seem to be closing in on mine. Her smell, powerful before, is becoming too concentrated; intoxicating. Consuming me. _I can't breathe, I can't breathe—is this what it's like to kiss the moon? Oh god, her taste._ If the redness of my face is any indication, I'm probably dying. _I'm fine with that, though._

 _I hear her speaking, but am I listening to her?_ Registering those silly words, stumbling out as though tripping on her tongue? I hear her small noises, not her words— like that hitch in her voice as she whispers, telling me to slow down. The warmth of her is new to me and this feeling of needing is new to me. The glimmer of her eyes reflecting the lights is a beautiful sight, bright and new to my thirsty heart _. I want to capture these firsts in my memories. I want to possess all the nuances of her._ How could I slow down when her pale hair is sticking to her neck like this? When her mouth lies agape, as though in waiting? _No, I do not hear her speak, but I see her eyes;_ I see the sweat on her nape like dew, like lemon juice— like a kind of beautiful honey, coagulating into drops running across her bare form. I taste it, my teeth gently raking across her skin. _The pale skin, the pink skin, the plush skin_. Usagi voices her embarrassment in shudders and gasps, no longer in words. My mouth lingers longer, tracing her collar bone over, and then over again. Maybe now those sounds are my own.

I'm pushed away by gentle hands I do not resist, as the girl before my eyes props herself into a more workable position. She takes the satin ribbon of her uniform in hand, as performing an ancient and sacred rite, a christening of something I don't quite understand. She pulls, and lets its crimson fall beneath her, as her eyes convey that same something unknowable. I look at her, and I see her. I see the everything of her.

' _I want to go further.'_ I think to myself; I feel in myself; I pray to the sun.


End file.
